Exodus chapter 20. Our sister
Irene's doing well. We're thankful for that. Exodus
chapter 20. You remember we intended to look
at this altar the last time, but we didn't make it that far.
But read with me verses 24 through 26. Exodus 20, 24. of earth thou shalt make unto
me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings, thy peace
offerings, thy sheep, and thy oxen. In all places where I record
my name, I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee. And if
thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it
of hewn stone, For if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast
polluted it. Neither shalt thou go up by steps
unto mine altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon. Now
our Lord said in verse 23, Thou shalt not make with me gods of
silver, neither shalt thou make unto me gods of gold. make no god, no symbols, no images
whatsoever of any kind. He went into great detail about
it in Deuteronomy. Turn to Deuteronomy 4 with me,
Deuteronomy chapter 4. And he expressly commanded that
there should be no images, no symbols of any kind of silver
or gold, nothing for worship, Nothing to display in their houses
or on their person. No jewelry. No display or no
show of religion. That sure is relevant to today. Graven images is the second commandment
of our Lord. I shall not make any graven images. That's carved images, pictures
of any kind. Look at Deuteronomy 4. He says
in verse 12, he says, the Lord spake unto you out of the midst
of the fire. You heard the voice of the Word, but you saw nothing. You saw no similitude. You heard,
but you didn't see anything. This is vital. All right, look
at verse 15. Take therefore, verse 15, take
ye therefore good heed unto yourselves. You saw no manner of similitude
on that day. You saw nothing. He went on to
say, you will start worshipping these things. These things. Now you can go back to the text. Why is the Lord so adamant about
this? Why does He command it? Well,
because God has never been seen. So you can't make a likeness
of him. He will not be a good representation. Our Lord kept
saying this over and over, especially in Isaiah, to whom will you liken
me? Who are you going to compare
me to? God dwelleth in light which no
man can approach unto. Christ in Revelation 1 says His
countenance was as the sun that shineth in its strength. You
can't look at the sun. You sure can't paint a picture. It wouldn't
do Him justice with it. It wouldn't show His full glory
with it. God has never been seen. No man hath seen or can see at
any time. Jesus cried. You ever wonder
why there are no paintings from that time? There are paintings,
there are sculptures of Caesars, of Pilate, you know that? There
are sculptures of these ancient rulers, but none of Jesus Christ.
Why is that? God didn't allow it. He didn't
allow anyone to paint a picture or carve a sculpture. None whatsoever. God didn't permit
it. Now here's one reason too. Because the way he looked on
earth is not how he looks now. You hear me? You know, it's the
same with us. We're going to be us, but it
doth not yet appear what we shall be. We're going to be in a glorified
body. Our Lord veiled His true flesh,
I mean His true image. He had an image, we're going
to look at that in a minute, before He came. But God, number one,
God has never been seen, so He can't make a likeness. No likeness
will do Him justice. We need no other reason for not
doing something or doing something other than the Word of God. When
God says, don't do this, end of the argument. Right? Or do this. All right, secondly,
God is spirit. And God is to be worshipped in
spirit, not with things. God is not worshipped with men's
hands or things. All right? There were two ordinances
given in the New Testament, baptism and the Lord's table, right?
Baptism and the Lord's table. Both are temporary things. Both are gone in a moment, aren't
they? It's not something that you keep
around to cherish or think about or touch or feel or whatever.
It's gone. The Lord's table, which is a
picture, a symbol of the body broken, our Lord's body broken
and His blood shed. And you eat those things up.
You take them within and then they're gone. You can't see them
anymore. You can't keep, the Lord told them not to keep the
manna around, it will breed worms with it. A stench. The gospel, that's the bread
of the gospel is new every morning. The gospel is new every morning.
You can't eat leftovers. It breeds worms. But these symbols,
water, the baptism, there's nothing holy about the water that we're
baptized in. It comes from Franklin County's
water. This comes from a well. It's
full of iron. It's awful. We have to treat
it to make it baptismable. Right? It stains everything. If we don't treat it, it smells
bad. There's nothing holy about this
water. And we get in it, just as symbolic. And this is a picture
also of death. We're crucified with Christ,
buried with Him. We're not going to stay there.
We don't worship, we don't hang a grave around our neck. We don't
worship a grave. I know people go to the grave,
you know, to think about their loved ones, but they came to
the grave of our Lord and the angels said, why are you here? What are you doing here? Why
are you seeking the living among the dead? And the water, we drain it, and
it's there no more. So these two symbols. Beside, we don't walk by sight,
we walk by faith. How does faith come? Hearing. He said, you didn't see anything,
but you heard my voice. Now this is the difference between
true religion and false. False religion is all show, right? Signs, miracles, wonders, props,
symbols, things, entertainment, all of this to get people to,
you know, to feel in religion. Think on these things. No, don't
think on these things. Think on things above which you
can't see. Think on Christ, the unseen one.
Faith cometh by hearing, not seeing. We walk by faith, not
by sight. We believe in an unseen God,
don't we? We really do. And this is proof
of His power. It's easy to believe what you
see. Right? It's easily what you see. What
state is it? Missouri, the show me state?
Everybody there is an unbeliever, I guess. No, Drew Dietz is there
in New John. There's a handful of believers
there that say, no, don't show me, tell me. Faith comes by hearing,
and the whole world of religion wants to see a thing, and that's
how you get people in, that's how they all feel religious,
and they hear the music and see the band and see the preacher
waving his hand and all the people get excited and it kind of rubs
off and they say, oh, didn't we have a good day today? No,
God wasn't within a mile of that place. God's not worshiping men's hands.
It's not a show of worship. God, they that worship him must
worship him in spirit, from the heart, and in truth. We three
marks of true believers in Philippians 3 are these. Philippians 3, 3. We worship God in the spirit.
We rejoice in Christ Jesus. Every time God's people meet
together, they rejoice. and Jesus Christ in Him crucified.
You can't come to God, you can't worship God apart from Jesus
Christ. If there's no mention of the blood, there's no worship. Thirdly, no confidence in the
flesh. No flesh. Get it out of here. Get the flesh out of here. Just
the Word, which is God's power, and the Holy Spirit, who's unseen,
moves. Doesn't make people act like
blooming idiots. Like the Gadarene demoniac, he sits them down clothed
in their right mind. They hear of God on the throne
and Christ on the throne and their need of Him. And they worship
God from the heart for the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
true worship. That's how God's worshiped. No
symbols. No implements. Alright, this altar. I know we
went over that. is nothing more needful than
today. If you wonder why we're wearing
crosses and things like that, what's wrong with it? Because
God said don't do it. You don't need another reason. Our religion is not seen, it's
heard. Well, how will people know you're
a Christian? Seriously? That's not how they know you're
a Christian, because you're wearing something. Because who you believe,
who you testify of, it's the truth you believe, and it's the
truth you testify of. Strippers wear crosses. Drug pushers wear crosses. Does
that make them a Christian? No, it just makes a mockery of
Christianity is what it does. No, no, no, no. You know, the testimony we make
before men, or tell before men of the Gospel, the witness of
Christ, and the life, the God-fearing, Godly life that we live. Your
works, they may behold your good works and glorify God. Yes, those
things. That's what testifies, that's
what proves you're a Christian. You don't need outward things,
do you? Alright, this altar, verse 24.
An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me. And thou shalt
sacrifice thereon thy burnt offering, thy peace offering, thy sheep
oxen, in all places where I record my name, I will come unto thee,
I will bless thee. He will not come, he will not
bless without these sacrifices, without the sacrifice. God is
not in the midst of us except through Jesus Christ crucified,
that sacrifice. All right, this altar of earth,
1 Corinthians 15, go over there, 1 Corinthians 15. You know what,
or rather who, this represents, don't you? When I brought it
up, when we read it last time, I looked at your faces and there
was instant recognition. Because Christ is all and in
all of these things. An altar of earth, this was not
a beautiful thing. It was made out of mud. It wasn't gold and silver. It
was dirt. Very plain. Not a beautiful thing.
And that was by design. And what was happening on that
altar? What was that altar for? One
reason. You know what the word altar
means? It means a place for slaughtering animals. That's what it's for. That's the only purpose that
an altar serves. The definition of altar, look
it up, is a place to sacrifice or slaughter animals. It wasn't
a beautiful place at all. What was going on there was awful
looking. To the natural eye, it was just
repulsive. And this mud or dirt altar had
blood all over it. There was nothing beautiful about
that. But you know what was beautiful? what it represented. What was
going on? What was happening? In Isaiah
52 it says, Our Lord's visage was marred more than any man.
You cannot paint a picture of what Christ looked like on that
cross. You wouldn't hang it on your wall. Nobody could stand
to look at it. He was beaten to a pulp, his
beard jerked out, he was covered with his own blood, his eyes
were slit, his face swollen, visage, you couldn't stand to
look at him. He was naked, he was naked, he didn't have a loincloth
on, he was naked. Everybody would be ashamed to
put that on their wall, repulsed by it, it's offensive to the
flesh. That's exactly what the cross
is, an offense to the flesh. It wasn't a beautiful thing that
was going on on that cross. It was an awful thing. It's a
dreadful thing. It's a terrible thing. This Methodist
place up the street has on one side of their sign, the cross
shows the magnitude of the love of God. Not first, it doesn't. It is the love of God, but the
first thing it shows is the holiness of God. The justice of God. What God thinks of sin. What God will do to sinners that
don't have a sacrifice. That's what the cross shows.
Yes, the love of God. It shows the depravity, the wickedness
of man. It shows what man thinks of God,
and it shows what man thinks of sin. That's what the cross
says. That's the first thing you'll see. First thing it produces, not
love, but fear, but guilt and shame. That's what the cross
is. Our Lord was crucified in shame. Shame. Whose shame? Ours. There's a
song, I should have been crucified. I should have been. That's the
death. born hating God and not giving
thanks to God and going all their life supported by God and provided
for by God. Mercy of God, and the grace of
God, and to never give God a thought. Criminals, rebels against God.
That's what they deserve. To be put to shame. But Christ,
the Sacrifice, the Substitute, was put to shame in their place.
Naked. All things are naked and open.
People love, in this generation, to get naked. They're getting
more and more naked. It's propulsive to God. Flesh. Showing off the
flesh. And flesh is no good thing. And
God stripped his son naked on the cross and showed what he
thinks of sinful, naked, proud flesh. That's what the cross is. It's
an offense. It's an offense to the natural man. It's an offense
to the flesh. It wasn't a beautiful thing at all. But oh, the beauty.
of God's grace, of God's mercy, of, yes, God's love. 1 Corinthians 15 is the altar of
earth. Look at the whole chapter of
1 Corinthians 15. It's about the gospel, isn't
it? Verse 1, I declare unto you,
brethren, the gospel which I preached unto you, which you have received,
wherein you stand, by which also you are saved. How do you save?
One way. The gospel. How? The preaching of the gospel.
No other way. And verse 3 says, I've delivered
unto you first of all that which I also receive. Here it is. Here's the gospel. How that Christ
died for our sins according to the Holy Spirit. That's the gospel. How Christ died for the sins
of his people according to the gospel. And from Genesis to Revelation. From the garden to glory. is
Christ crucified. When the first sinner sinned,
God, I think it was Christ, we believe it's Christ, came walking
in the garden and he slit a lamb's throat. And it was an awful sight. But they took that skin of that
lamb, that innocent, that substitute, that sacrifice, that blood was
shed, and took that skin and covered their nakedness. And
to them, it was a wonderful thing. And they found out what it was
about. About Christ. So, look at 1 Corinthians 15. Look at verse 21. And since by sin, by man came
death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. As in Adam all die,
even so in Christ shall all be made alive. Okay, the first man. Now look at verse 45. You have
it? As it is written, the first man,
Adam, was made a living soul. The last man, last Adam, was
made a quickening spirit. Verse 47. The first man is of
the earth. Earthy. The second man is the
Lord from heaven. Earthy. Adam's name means that,
doesn't it? Earth. Red earth. Okay? Christ the Lord came from heaven.
I was going to have you turn to Hebrews 2, but we don't have
time. Christ the Lord came from heaven to earth. He came to this
earth and he had to become earthy, didn't he? In the likeness of
sinful flesh, without sin. We say, God says of us, in our
flesh dwelleth no good thing, in his flesh No bad thing, no
evil thing. Holy, pure, spotless, literally
spotless until the scars. And in glory, we're going to
be totally spotless. And the only one with any marks
on his flesh is Jesus Christ to remind us how his flesh was
marred so that we'd be spotless. Isn't that beautiful? He became earthy. Flesh. Though that wasn't his true essence,
was it? Earth? Oh, no. It's heaven. Heaven. He said, in one place,
he said, you're from the earth. You're from below. I'm from above.
He took an earthly body because we have one. He was made of a
woman because we are. Flesh and blood. Bone of our
bones. Flesh of our flesh. He was under
the law. Because we are. Right? He took an earthly body for two
reasons. The reason he took a body was
for two reasons. As a living sacrifice. To live
before God a holy and perfect and righteous life. And God was
well pleased for his righteousness. We must live a perfect life before
God to be accepted by God. You know that? How holy do you
have to be? How pure do you have to be to be in God's presence?
Read Psalm 24 for yourself. Clean hands, pure heart, never
lifted up your soul under vanity or swore deceitfully, ever, in
your life. And God looks on the heart too.
Not just outward, but inward. That's how good you have to be.
And I didn't say that. God said that. We've all failed miserably. In
fact, in our flesh dwelleth no good thing. We've broken every
law. Isn't it significant that right
after the Ten Commandments, he says, now build an altar? Is that not significant? Why? You're going to have to
sacrifice a substitute in your path, an innocent, a sinless
substitute, a sheep, a lamb, a ram of the first year, which
is Christ. So our Lord became a living sacrifice,
but he got to die. The soul that sins will surely
die. He came to live, a living man, flesh like us, honored,
glorified God, God well pleased, flesh and blood cannot go into
glory. Christ did. He walked right on
into glory. The gates of glory opened up.
This man come in. Why? He's holy. He's just like
God. He's righteous. Well, look behind
him. A whole train of people following
him. And not their works, but His.
Not their righteousness, His. Doctrine? No, this is God's glory
and this is our salvation. He is our righteousness. Okay?
He became a living sacrifice in the flesh and a dying sacrifice. God, He bore our sins, the sins
of His people, in His body on the tree. And God punished Him,
literally and spiritually. His soul was made an offering
for sin. The soul that sinned must surely
die. Not only must flesh be Whipped,
Isaiah 53, chastisement, the beating. Not only that, but a
soul that sinned must surely die. Well, his soul became an
offering. God made him sin for His people. And he went through hell. He
didn't go to hell, but he went through hell, which is separation
from God for all of God's people. Now, why did he do that? so that we'll never go there,
so that we'll never repent, never. Flesh and blood, second Adam
from above in the likeness of sinful flesh, an altar, an altar. Now this is a mystery, but he
had an image before he came, didn't he? When God said, let
us make man, what did he say, let us make man in our own image. Isaiah 9, a child was born, yes,
at that time, a flesh and blood and bones human being. That's all they thought it was.
It's more than that. That's what you preach to them. No, but the Son is given. The Son, the eternal Son of God.
Only begotten, well-beloved Son of God, dwelled with God, read
Proverbs 8, from the beginning. He had an image. Why? Proverbs
8 says because His delights were with the sons of men in the habitable
parts of the earth. We did message after message
on our Lord coming to this earth and speaking to human beings.
He had to have an image, didn't He? He did. And there's so many. I'd get hung up if I started
bringing them up. Like the Adam and Eve. Abraham,
Noah. So he took an earthen body as
it were, but his true image was covered, was veiled with this
flesh. And one day he took three disciples
up on a mountain to show them his real person. And they couldn't
look on him. Not with flesh and blood eyes. And we couldn't either, any more
than we can look in the sun. But someday we're going to be
glorified too. We'll be able to be in his presence and be
able to behold him. So, an earthen vessel. Go back to our text here in Exodus
20. An earthen altar. And as said, the word altar means
a sacrifice. There is no other altar. Don't
make some kind of altar where people come down and dedicate
and rededicate. You heard that? All false religion. Growing up, I heard it. Come
down to the altar. Give your all on the altar. It's idolatry. It's not Roman
Catholicism, but it's the same thing. Southern Baptist altar. There's no mourner's bench down
here. There's no altar here. There's a table here, and I really
wish that wasn't written on here. One time I turned it around.
But it's just a table of woods, nothing special. Don't come down
here. Brother Scott used to say, don't, he said, come to Christ,
but don't move a muscle. Don't leave a pew. But he's not
down here. Where is he? He's seated on the
throne. He comes to Christ all the time. Where you are. The altar in Hebrews 10. Let me just read this to you
real quickly. I meant to turn there. You know,
we do have an altar. And those of you who've read
it. In Hebrews 10. Where is he? Right before James. Alright. Hebrews 10. Listen to
this. He says in Hebrews 13, 10, we have
an altar whereof they have no right to eat which serve the
tabernacle. They still have these things,
these symbols and all of this. The Jews still go through all
those Jewish things. They don't sacrifice lamb. But they still have all these
outward things, and religion has all these outward things.
We have an altar. Now, what is it? It's not a what. It's a person. It's a person. And he goes on to say, our Lord
Jesus Christ is Him. And he says, let's go to Him.
Let's go to Him. Yes, put your all on the altar. Cast all your care on Christ,
the altar. He ain't down here. He's up there.
And go to Him without the camp. That means outside of religion.
No things. No flesh. Religion. Worship in spirit.
Alright, the next thing he said. Verse 25. If you make an altar
of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone. something you
hew out and you carve to your liking. That's what it said. If you lift
up your tool, you've polluted it. Well, where'd they get the
stone? Well, look at 1 Kings 5. Turn
over to 1 Kings 5 very quickly, okay? I'm out of time. 1 Kings
5. Stone. What does stone represent?
That represents our Lord's deity. The earth is His earthly tabernacle,
His humanity. And stone represents His deity. How many times in Scripture does
it talk about stone? How many times in Scripture does
it talk about rock? That rock was crying. The rock
followed Him. Out of the rock came water. The rock of ages cleft for me,
Moses was hid in the cleft of the rock, Roses stood on the
rock, was hid in the cleft of the rock. The foundation stone,
that's what the scripture says, Christ is that foundation stone
which no man can lay, but it's been laid, who laid this stone? God did. I lay in Zion. A sure foundation, a stone. Stone
of stumbling and rock of a fence. Scripture said. A stone, you
know. Earth will wash away, won't it?
Stone. It's right there. Right there. We have stone all
around us, don't we? Bald knob. Every time you look
at a bald knob, you ought to think of Jesus Christ. There
he is. I brought this up one time. You
know, men deify and worship these old Civil War generals and all
that and others at Stonewall Jackson. They said of him, they saw him
sitting there on his horse with all that gunfire and cannons
and his troops rallied and said, there he is, he's standing there
like a stone wall. They got strength and courage
to go on and enter the battle and all that. Well, he was shot
by his own men and he died. Significantly, he lost his arm.
Robert E. Lee said, I lost my right arm.
Well, he's not my right arm. I'll tell you who my right arm
is. Jesus Christ, the right arm of God. And there he stands like
a stone wall. That's the captain of my salvation. Yes, he died, but he lives. And he's there like a rock refuge,
a fortress, a high tower. Unchangeable. Unmovable. One place he said, if this stone
falls on you, it'll grind you to powder. But if you fall on
it, you'll be broken, but saved. Go learn what that means. 1 Kings 5, verse 17. The king commanded, and this
is the building of the temple, The king commanded they brought
great stones, costly stones, huge stones to lay the foundation
of the house, okay? When the house was being built,
it was built with stones that were huge, not on the site, not
at that time. Look at chapter 6, verse 7. The house, chapter 6, verse 7. The house, the temple was built,
the building was built of stone made ready before it was brought
there. Man, I thought I'd get a rise
out of somebody there. You know what that says? Christ existed
long before he came. Christ was made the foundation
long before he came. Christ was crucified, the lamb
slain, before the foundation of the world. Yes, men slew him,
but it was God that killed him. And this is why every Old Testament
saint is saved by the crucifixion of Christ, before he came. And
every single believer stood on the foundation of that stone
which was laid before he came. And me and that man had nothing
to do with it. Before, during, or after. This
is the stone which God huge which God made ready before He came. And when He came, Christ said,
God said, there He is. There He is. Unmovable. Unshakable. Unchangeable. The same yesterday, today, and
forever. That, He said, is your hope.
This is who you're built on. This is who you believe. This
is who you rest on. It all depends on Him. It all
rests on Him. And then there's a cleft, crucified.
I'm going to put you in the cleft of that rock. A refuge. A cave. A hiding place. And nobody and
nothing can touch you. Amen. What about this last verse
in Exodus 20? It says, don't go up to that
altar or I'll see your nakedness. Boy, if that isn't relevant.
You go over to Rome and you watch that Pope and all those cardinals
ascend steps. And they go up to a throne where
everybody comes and bows at their feet and kisses their ring. And that's an abomination to
God. It's an abomination to God's
people. When you come to God, you get down. You bow down. You don't lift yourselves up.
You humble yourselves in the sight of God. And the men wore robes back then. The high priest wore robes. And
literally, you don't walk up there or you'll see some flesh. God says, don't you come near
that altar. I don't want to see flesh. That's what He said. I don't want to see any naked
flesh. It's repulsive to me. It's pride. It's sinful flesh. That's what it is. Don't let
me see any flesh. And that's why our Lord was stripped.
Naked. Flesh. And God slew Him. Naked, sinful
flesh. And we come to Christ. We bow
down before the King. I'll tell you who went up by
steps. I'll tell you who ascended. It was He that descended and
became earthy. And He ascended. and sat down at the right hand
of the majesty on high. And we bow down and kiss his
feet, humble ourselves, and cover our flesh and our faces before
him. He's our altar, he said, of earth
and stone."